


a liar, a scandal, a fire through the roof

by alcibiades



Series: do i really have to come up with a title for this now [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Unhealthy Relationships, Unsafe Sex, minor appearances from Steve and SHIELD agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:25:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2636270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcibiades/pseuds/alcibiades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson, from what Bucky had gleaned, was more an amiable brick wall that you could pound yourself against and get nothing from, but still feel that it had been nice about it afterwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a liar, a scandal, a fire through the roof

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mr-finch (soubriquet)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soubriquet/gifts).



> Eli asked me for some Bucky/Coulson; and lo, Bucky/Coulson was written. Title from ["Murmurs," by Hundred Waters.](http://youtu.be/vo-8Oa2t4Ro)

The briefing went longer than Bucky had expected it to. He was here as a favor to Steve, who was in goddamn Siberia on some mission he couldn't talk to even Bucky about. He realized about halfway through what seemed like an interminable speech from a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who could only be described as "irrepressibly eager" that it was possible it only seemed as long as it did because he was used to Steve's method of doing things, which involved less planning than it did throwing out a loose framework for how things ought to go and then jumping out of airplanes. Sometimes without parachutes.

Technically speaking it might not even be a favor to Steve. It was more a favor to Coulson - Director Coulson, now. Bucky had met him once or twice before and he always seemed nice enough, if a somewhat amorphous figure. Coulson was very different from Nick Fury. Even knowing Fury as little as he did, Bucky could tell that.

Coulson seemed, on first glance, anyway, to take a kinder, gentler approach than Fury ever had. Fury had been a character of sharp-edged mystery and darkness, whereas Coulson, from what Bucky had gleaned, was more an amiable brick wall that you could pound yourself against and get nothing from, but still feel that it had been nice about it afterwards. Bucky couldn't say whether it was better or worse, objectively; he was pretty ill-equipped to make any kind of rational judgements about how well S.H.I.E.L.D. had functioned over the last seventy or so years.

He was, truthfully, ill-equipped to make any kind of judgements about any of this, considering. He'd only been about half-paying attention but had somehow managed to absorb most of the information anyway; he looked down to discover that he'd even been taking notes. This happened sometimes, even now, months after Hydra's drugs had worn off and his stubborn brain had mostly repaired itself.

Eventually the lights came back up in Coulson's office, and Bucky sat back in his chair. Coulson stood behind his desk with his hands in his pockets, and the expectant look on his face told Bucky that he wanted to say something to Bucky, but privately. So Bucky stayed behind, twirling the pen in his metal fingers, until everybody else had gone.

"What do you think?" Coulson asked him, pointing at the notes Bucky had taken.

Bucky shrugged, dragging one of the corners of his mouth down for a moment. "Pretty straightforward," he said. "With me on the strike team, there won't be any problems. In-and-out."

Coulson nodded. "I thought so," he said. "I appreciate you agreeing to do this, in Captain Rogers' absence. I know that S.H.I.E.L.D. hasn't always been --"

"It's no problem," Bucky said, cutting him off. "Saves me from a week or two of ordering takeout and watching Netflix. Might as well be doing something with myself, and I'm happy to help a friend of Steve's."

For a second, he could have sworn that Coulson looked flustered at Bucky referring to him as Steve's friend. "I don't know," said Coulson, "I heard they have the whole series of Gilmore Girls available for streaming right now. Sounds like it could be pretty tempting."

"Hey, if I was watching that, at least Netflix wouldn't be recommending 'Inspiring World War II Movies' as a category," said Bucky, grinning and standing up. He reached to shake Coulson's hand. "Glad to be here. Thanks for having me."

"Thank you, Sergeant Barnes," said Coulson. He had a good handshake, Bucky thought. Firm, but not strangling. "I'll see you at 10:00 tomorrow?"

"You sure will," said Bucky.

++

He showed up the next day with a small duffel bag full of his stuff and a case for the rifle. The rest of the agents gave him a fairly wide berth that seemed to be out of some combination of deference and fear, and Bucky sat with his headphones on, reading, for most of the flight to the mission location. He could vaguely remember a lot of similar traveling in his past, but the main difference there was that he couldn't remember _what_ he'd done, then, while traveling. Nothing, probably. 

He was almost three-quarters of the way through his book by the time they landed. The safehouse was about twenty minutes from the site of the mission, and it was nicer than any of the Hydra safehouses he'd been kept in. That made sense.

Bucky's room was the furthest down the hall, and he realized within about thirty seconds of watching the rest of the agents split up and head into their own rooms that he was the only one who wasn't bunking with somebody else. A part of him rankled at it, the idea that he needed to be treated differently, but the other part of him, the part that was more common sense and less indignation, thought about the fact that sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, and then he was glad to be by himself. 

They all met in the dining room to go over the plan. Bucky found himself in his usual place, at the shoulder of the person in charge of the mission - usually Steve, in this case Coulson. Everyone on the team had their roles down pat, Bucky included, and he started to feel that perverse sense of boredom again. A masochistic feeling, a longing for chaos that was very out-of-place with more or less anyone except Steve.

He texted Steve a picture of himself making a face that night with the message, "so missions that don't involve jumping out of planes without parachutes or charging headlong into danger without a plan are now boring to me and i blame you".

He didn't get a message back, of course. Steve was in Siberia; there was no way he had text messaging.

++

The mission went fine. The worst part about it was that Bucky found himself feeling sorry for the rest of the agents on the team, and then subsequently felt like a huge asshole about it. They weren't as fast or as strong or him, sure, but the fact of the matter was that they were perfectly fine as they were, and hadn't gone through the seventy years of bullshit that Bucky had, besides. 

He stayed out of the thick of it as much as he could. It was easier to be removed, just to observe from his perch and take the shot when he needed to. He wasn't Steve; he wasn't on this team to lead and inspire. He was on this team to do whatever they needed him to do, which had always, for as long as he could remember, been his job description.

It went a little sideways right at the end. Things tended to - when the losing side realized they were losing, they lost all sense of restraint, and that usually got very bloody very fast. Skye got cornered on the opposite side of the building from May, and Bucky rolled into action quickly. It wasn't that he intended to cut a swathe of destruction through the building to her, but when he went into that space it took a deliberate act for him to show any kind of mercy, and his training was such that it was often faster to kill than it was to simply incapacitate.

She was bleeding from her mouth and nose by the time he got to her, and at first she almost looked more scared of him than she had of the Hydra agents who Bucky had left slumped against the wall outside. "You all right?" Bucky said, approaching her but carefully not getting too close, not touching her. When she nodded, he beckoned her toward himself. "Let's get out of here, then," he said. 

For a base this small there were a lot of agents, and Bucky was grateful that Skye had the good sense to stay behind him, like a shadow. They made it out and back to the van they'd driven down in without any further incident, and it wasn't until Bucky climbed in and all the rest of the team turned to look that he realized he had a lot of blood on him.

They went back to the safe house to clear it out rather than leaving directly, and Bucky was grateful for the opportunity to make use of the shower. He stripped out of most of his gear right there in the entryway, peeling off his jacket and shirt and taking them with him so he could at least rinse them off.

"Give me ten minutes," he said, turning around. He accidentally met Coulson's eye, and there was -- something there that --

Seven minutes later he was tying his wet hair back into a haphazard knot and shrugging his duffel over his shoulder, the damp jacket and shirt inside. He'd wash them properly when he got back. For now he'd changed; in his jeans and sweatshirt he felt deeply unprofessional next to the rest of the team, but it was more funny than anything else.

He finished his book about an hour into the flight and set it aside, scrolling through his emails and replying to a few that he'd been meaning to answer for a while. He felt like he could sleep - he'd slept pretty poorly the night before - but didn't dare trying to fall asleep here and now. He knew without knowing that it'd end badly.

He ran the battery down on his phone playing Kim Kardashian: Hollywood for the rest of the flight instead, grateful that nobody could see his screen and dreading the moment he looked at his iTunes purchases to see how much money he'd spent on it. Not that it mattered - he had more goddamn money than he knew what to do with, even spending it with all the aggressive verve he could muster. 

When they were back at the base, everyone seemed about as eager to get out of the debriefing as Bucky felt, and it was just about as short and as half-assed as the briefings he was more used to. They all got up and left just as soon as Coulson said, "Well, that's about it, you're dismissed," leaving Bucky sitting there by himself and feeling about two moves behind.

He stood up and brushed his hands along his pants, glancing between Coulson and the door. "Thanks for having me on the team," said Bucky. "I would say it was a good time but I think that might be a little bit fucked-up."

Coulson shrugged, his mouth twisting up in a wry smile. "I should be the one thanking you. Again." He paused, and then, earnestly, "Really. It's been an honor working with you, Sergeant."

Bucky wondered if the rest of the agents felt the same way. "Stop, you're making me blush," he said, watching the way Coulson's face changed as he said it. He remembered the first time he'd met Coulson - he'd been with Steve, and the look of hero-worship on Coulson's face when he talked to Steve wasn't quite the same, but --

Bucky went and closed Coulson's office door. Locked it. He turned around and saw Coulson looking at him, his mouth open a little bit. Confused, maybe slightly scared, but only slightly. Bucky walked toward him, unzipping his sweatshirt and letting his hair down. Coulson backed up slowly as Bucky came closer, but he didn't have far to go, and Bucky's steps were larger, so it ended with Coulson pressed against his desk and Bucky right in front of him.

Bucky looked down at Coulson for a second -- he'd never realized it before, but Coulson was several inches shorter than him -- and then smoothly got down onto his knees, reaching for Coulson's belt.

"Sergeant Barnes --" said Coulson. 

Bucky cut him off. "You tell me to stop if you want," he said, "But otherwise, shut up." 

Coulson's mouth snapped closed, and Bucky undid his belt and his pants efficiently, pushing them - and his boxers underneath - down his thighs. He waited about half a second and then swallowed Coulson's dick right down, carefully bracing his hands on Coulson's hips so that Coulson's legs couldn't go out from under him even if they wanted to.

He felt it for a second -- Coulson's knees did almost buckle, but then he got ahold of himself, gripping the desk white-knuckled with both hands. Bucky sucked hard for a good few seconds and then pulled off, pressing the flat of his tongue against the underside of Coulson's cock as he did. He looked up at Coulson through his eyelashes - that move was always a killer - and licked delicately at the head of Coulson's cock for a second, before sucking him back in.

The look on Coulson's face now was one of astonishment, and Bucky resolved to fix that, sucking and licking until he saw Coulson's eyes roll back a little, and then Coulson tilted his head back and his hand slid into Bucky's damp hair, and Bucky almost smirked with self-satisfaction. Probably would have, if he didn't have a mouthful of dick.

"Sergeant Barnes," said Coulson weakly, and then, more urgently, " _Bucky,_ " and then it was about ten more seconds before he shot off in Bucky's mouth, his hand tugging gently at the hair near the base of Bucky's neck.

Bucky waited until he was sure Coulson was done, and then pulled away, licking his lips and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He zipped up his sweatshirt and got to his feet. "Listen, I appreciate the opportunity, Director Coulson," he said. "You know where to find me if you've got any more missions you think I'd be a good fit for."

He left Coulson standing there looking poleaxed, and went out the door of the S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker whistling a cheerful tune.

++

He had a long phone conversation with Steve the next afternoon, when Steve finally had some cell phone reception and some time alone, and it felt like being punched in the chest how much he missed Steve. But it was going to be at least another week before Steve was back, and he couldn't just sit around feeling lonely and pathetic.

So, when Coulson left him a voicemail a couple days later, it seemed like the smartest thing to do to go down to S.H.I.E.L.D. He rode Steve's bike down there on the pretense of not letting it sit around, and parked it in the special parking spot they had reserved for Avengers, an anachronism which made him give a surprised belly-laugh at the sight of it.

There wasn't anybody else in Coulson's office when he went in, and Bucky raised his eyebrows, tucking his hair behind his ear as he pulled off his motorcycle gloves. "I got your message," he said. "You got a mission you want me on?"

He watched the expression on Coulson's face change, the look of chagrin, and before Coulson could say anything, he shook his head, waving his hand. "You don't need to explain," he said. "I get it."

Coulson looked a little skeptical, and Bucky said, "No, I really do, trust me. You spend a lot of your life not going after what you want, for whatever reason, but once you come back, it gets harder to want to tell yourself no, doesn't it?" He grinned, unzipping his jacket and shrugging it off, draping it over the back of a chair. "You start to feel like you wasted enough time being scared, and now you've seen the worst of it, so you might as well reach out and grab what it is that you want."

He walked around behind Coulson's desk and planted one hand on Coulson's chest, pushing him down into his chair and then settling on top of him, straddling him. "I thought," said Coulson carefully, "That you and Captain Rogers --"

"Steve and I have an agreement," said Bucky, leaning down to kiss him.

Coulson was a good kisser, and he got incredibly hard incredibly fast. His hands slid along Bucky's thighs, under his shirt. He rubbed his thumbs over Bucky's nipples and Bucky made a soft noise into his mouth, surprised, then pulled back just enough so he could get his shirt off.

If nothing else, the look on Coulson's face would have been enough to get Bucky hard. Nobody looked at him like that anymore, especially not with the reminder of the arm and the ugly pink line of scarring that connected it to his body right there, plain as day. But Coulson didn't seem to care, just slid his hand down and cupped Bucky right through his jeans, his palm rubbing against Bucky's zipper.

Bucky got his hand between them and undid his belt and the button of his pants, and Coulson did the rest, skinning his jeans down until they were around his knees. Bucky glanced behind himself and pulled himself up onto Coulson's desk, and kicked them off the rest of the way, and there he was, naked, on Coulson's desk, while Coulson remained fully clothed, though he was red-faced and stubble-burned.

"You gonna fuck me?" said Bucky, somewhat breathlessly, getting a hand around his own cock and stroking himself a couple times. "Or you just gonna look at me?"

"I -- honestly, I was hoping for a little of both," said Coulson, but he got out of his chair and undid his tie, coming closer, running his hands along the inside of Bucky's thighs. Bucky reached for him and unzipped his pants, pressing the tube of lubricant into one of his hands.

"One thing at a time," said Bucky, and Coulson, thankfully, knew exactly what to do. And he turned out to be good at that, too; by the time he had two fingers inside Bucky, Bucky was squirming on the desk, arching his back, his mouth open. 

"I don't -- have a condom," Coulson said, and Bucky propped himself up on one elbow so that Coulson could see him roll his eyes, then wrapped his legs around Coulson and reeled him in. Coulson pressed in slowly, and Bucky didn't have to pretend it felt good, because it really did. 

He was stupidly gentle with Bucky -- you could even call it reverent. He put his hands all over Bucky and leaned down to kiss him, his hips moving steadily, and Bucky could feel his control over the situation slipping away, but he was too far gone now to do anything about it.

Coulson pulled out and turned him over, sliding his hands down Bucky's spine, and then he did start fucking him in earnest, and god, Bucky hoped the office was soundproof, because he couldn't stay quiet any more. Even without being able to see Coulson's face, Bucky could feel Coulson lose it more and more with every noise he made, his grip on Bucky tightening.

Bucky almost wished he'd leave marks, but any mark that Coulson could leave would be gone within the hour. It didn't matter; thirty seconds and it was all over anyway, because Bucky jerked and let out a groan and came, and Coulson lasted about three more thrusts after that.

He picked himself up off the desk; his metal fingers had left scratches in the finish, but hopefully nothing that wouldn't buff out. The rest of the desk was a mess too, when Bucky turned back over - the smear of his come, and a little bit of sweat, fingerprints everywhere. He grabbed his pants and underwear and put them back on, then went around to the other side of the desk and sat down heavily in the chair where he'd thrown his jacket, running a hand through his hair.

Coulson politely passed his t-shirt over, watching Bucky like a hawk as he re-did the neat knot of his tie. Bucky took it and held it for a second while his breathing slowed, then put it back on haphazardly.

"Should I clean that up?" he asked, gesturing to the desk with one hand, grabbing for a tissue with the other. 

Coulson glanced down at the desk like it hadn't even occurred to him, eyebrows raised. "No, it's all right," he said. "I can take care of it." He plucked the tissue out of Bucky's hand and used it to mop up the mess, and for a second Bucky thought, _Yeah, I bet you'd like to have that sample._

"Was there," said Bucky finally, "actually something you needed to see me about?"

Coulson looked abashed for a second and shuffled some papers around until he came up with a file. "I wanted you to have this," he said. "It's everything that S.H.I.E.L.D. has on you right now. I know you've probably already seen most of it, if not all, but it was important to me that I give you a copy."

Bucky sat forward and reached for the file, unclipping one of the binder clips holding it shut so he could have a look inside. On one hand, it was a nice little gesture of goodwill, but on the other, it was pretty clearly an excuse. "Listen, Director," he said after a moment. "In the future? It's better if you don't try and make an excuse for it. Trust me on that one." He looked Coulson in the eye and gave him a small smirk. 

"Okay," said Coulson. "Thank you, Sergeant Barnes."

"Nothing to thank me for, sir," said Bucky, zipping up his pants and buckling his belt, shrugging back into his jacket. He tucked the file under one arm, gave Coulson a cocky salute.

He was halfway out the door when he heard Coulson's voice say, "Bucky--" and he ducked back inside, eyebrows raised, but Coulson just shook his head, waving his hand in front of him. "Never mind," he said. "Nothing."

Nothing was fine. Bucky could deal with nothing.


End file.
